Microsoft's second attempt at the Surface Pro has brought plenty of improvements, even if is still on shaky ground
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Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Surface Pro 2 Teardown: New Guts, But Still a Nightmare to Repair
Category: engadget walking dead emmy winners Bill De Blasio eminem
Meet Nexmo, The Telecom API Firm On Track For $40M In 2013 Revenue
Given the massive global popularity of messaging, the market in play is enormous. Nexmo is a quickly growing company that provides carrier-direct SMS and Voice APIs that developers can use to reach phones around the world. Vying for traction in the space with competitors like Twilio, Nexmo has raised raised $3 million earlier this year, and unlike so many other young technology companies, is profitable. However, it is a somewhat quiet company.
I recently sat down with Nexmo’s CEO Tony Jamous to dig into just how quickly his company is growing, how it managed to break into the black and what its next plans are. Jamous is affable, and provided TechCrunch with far more hard numbers than most firms are willing to share. Then again, most companies don’t share, because showing off how much money you lose isn’t too flattering. Nexmo doesn’t have that problem.
I won’t be focusing on the technical aspects of Nexmo and its industry in this post. That’s a discussion for another day.
Growth
Nexmo’s revenue grew at a stable 20 percent monthly for the first half of 2013. That income directly corresponds to the firm’s 20 percent average monthly growth rate of its through-traffic during the same period.
Chronologically, Nexmo began to accelerate around the time of its most recent round of funding – the company has raised a total of $3.83 million. Jamous referred to the cash injection as a “shot in the arm.” Ask any CEO what he intends to do with a new round of funding, and her response every time is the same: Acceleration. Nexmo is no different.
Using its most recent $3 million, Nexmo grew its sales team and signed several new and large clients. But in its favor, existing customers grew in scale, directly boosting traffic through its APIs and, thus, increasing revenue.
Nexmo has been caught in a contented updraft: It counts among its customers, by its estimation, about 80 percent of the “Over-The-Top Content” message market (OTT). Line, Viber and KaKaoTalk are among the larger OTT messaging services, and they use Nexmo. The company also works with other OTT players, but asked me not publish their names, citing private contracts.
To supplement the growth in its SMS business, Nexmo began to support voice calls in June. In July, 4 million calls were sent through the new service. Jamous stated that the voice part of Nexmo grew quickly at launch because existing clients had requested it, putting demand in place from its first day in operation. Twilio, which has been in the call game far longer, recently announced that it is handling about 4 million calls daily. I don’t have Nexmo’s comparable figure. Jamous did tell me that Nexmo has handled more than 1.4 billion voice and SMS API transactions.
Voice currently comprises 7 percent of Nexmo revenue, and the company expects it to rise to 15 percent of its fourth quarter revenue.
Revenue
Nexmo had revenues of $4 million in August. That figure is more than the company has raised, to date, it’s worth noting. That revenue rate puts Nexmo at around a $50 million yearly run rate. The company will exceed that rate in 2013, provided that it continues to grow.
According to Jamous, Nexmo expects total revenue of around $40 million for calendar 2013. Twilio was tipped earlier in 2013 to be on track for about $50 million in revenue for the year, putting the companies on rough top-line parity.
Extrapolating from the August revenue figure, assuming that Nexmo grows at 5 percent monthly – a reduced pace, but one that I think is a reasonable projection – Nexmo would generate just under $9 million in top line next December. That would put it on a nine-figure yearly run rate.
Money
Nexmo is looking to raise another tranche of cash. Why raise when you are profitable? Jamous wants to accelerate the growth of his product and support team. He still handles the bulk of support work himself, something that probably worked when the company was smaller than it is now.
Jamous indicated that he wants to raise more than $20 million, and the company is talking to new investors. Previously, Nexmo raised cash from foreign investors in China and Korea, helping it to build relationships in those markets where it didn’t have local clout. I wouldn’t be surprised if Nexmo raised its next round at least partially from investors of several continents.
Will the company struggle to raise cash? Probably not. Twilio recently raised $70 million. But the companies aren’t complete analogues, so we should avoid over-comparison, but in this context they are relatable. If Twilio can land $70 million (bringing its total raised cash to over $100 million) Nexmo shouldn’t struggle to pick up $22 million or $23 million.
The company also wants to put together a proper marketing strategy. You likely hadn’t heard of Nexmo before today. I only recently became acquainted with the firm. It could use a higher profile.
What’s Next
Nexmo was founded in June of 2010, and the first message went through its systems in January of 2011. So, in a little over three years, it has grown to a company on a $50 million yearly run rate. That’s an impressive tear. Still, the growth of OTT applications that were its clients did contribute greatly to its success, and growth.
To say right place, right time is lazy. Nexmo built a product and scaled as some of its larger firms did the same. Still, growth could slow if OTT app partners slow, and if those applications themselves lose relevance in the notoriously fickle mobile world, Nexmo could suffer from flat or declining incomes.
Also, Twilio is ludicrously well funded, and could begin to hem in on Nexmo’s key customers. Competition is a standard business risk, however, and not one that is unique to Nexmo. Still, for a company that wants to raise money on the strength of its growth, Nexmo has to keep a closer eye on its acceleration than comparable firms.
Provided that Nexmo secures the funds that it is looking for, it can begin marketing with a decent ROI, and can continue to develop its voice business. I don’t see why the company can’t continue steady growth. The days of 20 percent monthly revenue growth are likely past, but that doesn’t mean that the firm can’t keep putting points on the board.
It will be interesting to see how heavily Nexmo invests after it raises, and whether it will be willing to dip into the red for a few quarters to accelerate its top line. Once profitable, there is a certain momentum to making money. It can be uncomfortable to become cashflow negative (we’re speaking loosely here, of course) after being acquainted with profitability.
After digging through the numbers, Jamous and I discussed culture for a few minutes. The operating philosophy of Nexmo is to not hire until the need is painful, and even then to try and solve the need with technology. The company currently has 33 employees, spread throughout the United States, Hong Kong, London, and other locations. I don’t think that we’ll see Nexmo hire half of San Francisco once it secures its new funds.
–
The core challenge for Nexmo is proving that it can continue revenue growth. It doesn’t have to prove that it can generate profits. But to command the valuation it likely wants, it will have to detail how it can grow outside of the OTT as quickly as it grew with it.
I’ll be checking back in with the company towards the end of the year to see how its internal metrics are looking. For now, Nexmo has built a track record that it has to continue to live up to.
Top Image Credit: Clemson
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Yahoo to review redacted FISA papers before release
The U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has allowed Yahoo's counsel to review declassified documents from a 2008 dispute over data disclosure, after the company said the public release of documents redacted by the government could lead to its role being misunderstood.
The counsel for Yahoo may review the "redacted, formally declassified" versions of documents submitted to the court, Judge Reggie B. Walton of the FISC wrote in a ruling on Tuesday.
It is not clear what are the changes Yahoo may be allowed to make in the redacted documents.
Yahoo had asked the FISC in July to order the release of a secret order in a 2008 surveillance dispute, to show that it strongly resisted government orders. Disclosure of the documents of the 2008 dispute would show that it objected at every stage of the proceedings, but these objections were overruled and a stay denied, it said.
The move by Yahoo came after former National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden, disclosed through newspaper reports that Internet companies provided real-time access to content on their servers to the NSA under a surveillance program called Prism. The Internet companies have denied the charge.
Yahoo filed last month for pre-publication access to the court documents after redaction and declassification by the government. Yahoo said it wanted to review the government's submissions to "ensure that its redactions are well-founded and do not unintentionally create a risk that the documents will be misunderstood."
Upon receipt of notice from the government that it has provided the declassified documents to the court, Yahoo's counsel has seven days to raise any objections, which will then go to the government for its reply within seven days. Yahoo will then have three days to respond.
The U.S. Department of Justice and Yahoo earlier filed a joint motion before the court in which the DOJ said it had no issues with Yahoo viewing the documents after declassification and before their release. The DOJ is expected to provide a status report by November to FISC on the government's declassification of the documents by Nov. 12.
John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com
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Why HealthCare.gov Isn't Like A Typical E-Commerce Site
The federal government's beleaguered health care exchange site, HealthCare.gov, shares little in common with the e-commerce sites consumers use every day. On most e-commerce sites, prices are simple to find. Not so on HealthCare.gov. And that may be one of the reasons relatively few visitors to the site have actually enrolled.
Copyright © 2013 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
Now, some suggested that in this era of eBay and Amazon, building an online health care marketplace just shouldn't have been this difficult.
Here's NPR technology correspondent Steve Henn.
STEVE HENN, BYLINE: Sina Djafari has built more than one successful online marketplace. He now builds software to make building new e-commerce sites even easier. And he says when you go to any website to buy something, you usually have just one or two simple questions you want answered before you click buy.
SINA DJAFARI: When I went to healthcare.gov for the first time, my only question I wanted answered was how much is this going to cost me? And I just really wanted that answer, you know, as soon as possible.
HENN: If that's the goal of healthcare.gov, Sina Djafari says it should have been designed to deliver an answer to that question as quickly and painlessly as possible.
DJAFARI: You want to actually encourage people to move as far along in the process as possible without requiring any information from them.
HENN: But before you can see how much your policy will cost, there are pages of forms to fill out. They're buggy. They crash. The reason for all this pain is that the price of insurance on the site will change depending on how much you make. The Affordable Care Act offers subsidies. It's the act's defining feature. So the website was designed to figure out what your subsidies could be as its very first step.
And to figure all that out, the sight requires all sorts of sensitive personal information. It requires passwords and protections and security questions. The Fed's built a brand-new IRS database that would look up tax returns to verify your income. And all of that has to happen flawlessly before you get any kind of answer to that basic question you came with: How much is this going to cost? Sina Djafari says it didn't have to be this way. Just think about how you shop for a mortgage. You can go to any one of a dozen websites and type in your income anonymously, then enter your best guess as to your current credit rating, and then type how much you want to borrow.
DJAFARI: You know, it's a marketplace system.
HENN: In fact, it's a pretty good analogy for the health care marketplace. You have a lot of different businesses offering products through one portal. But lenders on mortgage sites all agree to put off the tedious bits, like verifying your income until after you've had a chance to peruse the goods and make a decision. Still, this system works.
DJAFARI: If you don't put the right information in early on, you're wasting your time. So you might as well put in the most accurate information you can now so that when you get an answer, it's the right answer.
HENN: And in the mortgage industry - at least these days - everyone knows your income will actually be checked. In fact, the IRS offers income verification electronically to mortgage lenders. It's not instant, but it doesn't derail the process for applying a loan, either. Jeff Sutherland is CEO of Scrum Inc. He says problems like these should have been spotted long before the site went live.
JEFF SUTHERLAND: We should stop this in its tracks, reset it, fix it in the right way and probably get, you know, 99 percent of the people involved in this off the payroll, because all they did was screw it up.
HENN: Sutherland helped pioneer a software design philosophy that breaks big projects like healthcare.gov down into small, digestible tasks. But he says given how the site was developed and taken live with little testing, failure was almost inevitable. Steve Henn, NPR News, Silicon Valley.
Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
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WWII vet honored with long-overdue medals
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Given the choice, World War II veteran Phillip Coon probably wouldn't want the formality and fuss of being honored on a military base with men and women standing at attention, dressed in full regalia — even if it was with a fistful of long-overdue medals he waited decades to receive.
So it's fitting that the awards were presented to the humble Tulsa-area man Monday evening in an informal ceremony at the Tulsa International Airport, with family and fellow veterans in attendance and little pomp and circumstance.
The 94-year-old survivor of a POW labor camp and the Bataan Death March received the Prisoner of War Medal, Bronze Star and the Combat Infantryman Badge after he and his son, Michael, returned from a trip to Japan to promote understanding and healing with the U.S.
A couple of dozen people applauded wildly after the medals were presented to Coon, who was seated in a wheelchair. He lifted his ball cap in recognition, exposing a shock of silver hair.
"I've been blessed to come this far in life," he said, a tear streaming down one cheek. "I thank the Lord for watching over me."
Japan's Foreign Ministry said Coon visited the site of the former POW camp in Kosaka next to a now defunct copper mine where he was put to forced labor. The veteran also met the mayor and other officials in Kosaka, in Japan's northern prefecture of Akita.
Coon, who lives in Sapulpa in northeastern Oklahoma, served as an infantry machine gunner in the Army. He is also a survivor of the Bataan Death March in the Philippines in 1942, when the Japanese military forced tens of thousands of American and Filipino soldiers to trek for 65 miles with little food or water in blazing heat. As many as 11,000 died along the way.
It's not clear why Coon didn't get his medals before now, but such occurrences with awards are not uncommon in the military.
"It continues to trouble me that there are instances where service members do not receive the service medals they have earned through the course of their careers," said U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, whose office contacted the military three weeks ago about the missing medals. "But It is extremely rewarding for me and my staff to be able to help veterans and active-duty members receive the honors they have fought for."
Retired Maj. Gen. Rita Aragon, Oklahoma's secretary of military and veterans' affairs, said most veterans were — rightly — more focused on reuniting with their families than chasing after military ribbons when they returned after the war. Aragon presented the medals to Coon during the airport ceremony.
Tulsa veteran David Rule, who served in the Vietnam War, helped Coon and his family to find out why his medals hadn't been issued. For the past 10 years or so, Rule has helped recognize about 150 area veterans by memorializing their names, ranks and branches of service on granite plaques that are presented to them and their families.
"I have a passion for these servicemen," Rule said earlier Monday. "They just sacrificed so much. It doesn't matter to me whether they were a cook or a four-star general, just for them to get this million-dollar smile on their face when they know they aren't forgotten."
___
Associated Press reporter Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.
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Tuesday, October 22, 2013
You can now stream Apple's iPad Air event online
Did you miss Tim Cook and co. deliver all of Apple's latest and greatest software and hardware updates this morning? Fear not, for you can witness the revelation of the iPad, OS X, MacBook and other news all over again on Apple's website, as it's streaming the event for all to see. Well, what are ...Similar Articles: AirDrop Never Forget 9/11 apple event Clemson University amc
Elsevier announces the winner of the 2013 Tetrahedron Prize
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 22-Oct-2013
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]
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d.sugrue@elsevier.com
31-204-853-506
Elsevier
Professor Shankar Balasubramanian from the University of Cambridge UK, is awarded the 2013 Tetrahedron Prize for his outstanding contributions to nucleic acid chemistry and biology
Amsterdam, October 22, 2013 Elsevier and the Executive Board of Editors of the Tetrahedron journal series are pleased to announce that the 2013 Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry & BioMedicinal Chemistry has been awarded to Professor Shankar Balasubramanian.
The annual Tetrahedron Prize honors the most creative and influential organic or medicinal chemist. The Executive Board of Editors of the Tetrahedron journal series selected Professor Balasubramanian for his many highly significant and seminal contributions to nucleic acid chemistry and biology.
Professor Stephen Neidle, Chairman of the Editorial Board of Tetrahedron journals said, "Professor Balasubramanian is a world-leading researcher in the study of quadruplex nucleic acids, demonstrating, for example, the existence of these structures in human cells: a landmark study which can pave the way to therapeutic targeting of quadruplexes. Furthermore, he has creatively applied knowledge of nucleic acid chemistry to the invention of next-generation DNA sequencing which is revolutionizing genetics and its application to medicine."
"I am deeply honoured to be the recipient of this important prize and to join such a distinguished collection of chemists who have previously received this award," said Professor Balasubramanian. "I would like to acknowledge the contributions of many talented and visionary co-workers and collaborators with whom it continues to be a great pleasure exploring nature through science. I thank Tetrahedron journals and the election committee for recognising the importance of the field of nucleic acids. I foresee that chemistry will contribute many more discoveries and inventions to further our understanding of DNA and RNA in the next decade and beyond."
Diddel Francissen, Executive Publisher of Tetrahedron journal series at Elsevier, said, "I am delighted with the choice of Professor Balasubramanian as the winner of the 2013 Tetrahedron Prize. I thank both the nominators and the leading scientists in the voting committee, who helped the Editors in making such an exceptional choice from a field of very strong nominations."
The Tetrahedron Prize consists of a gold medal and a monetary award of $10,000 and will be presented to Professor Shankar Balasubramanian at the Fall 2014 ACS National Meeting in San Francisco, USA (10-14 August 2014).
###
About Professor Shankar Balasubramanian
Shankar Balasubramanian was born in Madras (now Chennai) India in 1966 and moved to the UK with his parents in 1967. He grew up in a rural area just outside Runcorn in Cheshire and was schooled at Daresbury (primary), then Appleton Hall High School (secondary). He did his undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge (1985-88) and then carried out a PhD under the supervision of Professor Chris Abell (1988-1991). Balasubramanian then traveled to the USA as a SERC/NATO Research Fellow and worked in the group of Professor Steven J Benkovic at Pensylvannia State University (1991-1993). He started his independent academic career in 1994 in the University of Cambridge and has remained there ever since. He is currently the Herchel Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and holds a joint appointment between the Clinical School and Department of Chemistry. He directs research laboratories in the Department of Chemistry and also the Cambridge Research Institute at the Addenbrookes Biomedical Campus.
More information: http://www.ch.cam.ac.uk/group/shankar/professor-shankar-balasubramanian
About the Tetrahedron Prize
The Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry was established in 1980 by the Executive Board of Editors and the Publisher of Tetrahedron Publications. It is intended to honor the memory of the founding co-Chairmen of these publications, Professor Sir Robert Robinson and Professor Robert Burns Woodward.
The Tetrahedron Prize is awarded on an annual basis for creativity in Organic Chemistry or Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry. The prize consists of a gold medal, a certificate, and a monetary award of US $10,000. It is awarded to an Organic or Medicinal Chemist who has made significant original contributions to the field, in its broadest sense. On some occasions, the Prize may be awarded jointly to two winners in which case two medals are presented. The winner is expected to write an appropriate article for Tetrahedron or Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry as part of a Symposium-in-Print compiled in their honor.
For more information: http://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences/chemistry/organic-chemistry/tetrahedron-prize-for-creativity-in-organic-chemistry-or-bioorganic-medicinal-chemistry
About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, Reaxys, ClinicalKey and Mosby's Suite, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, helping research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.
A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world leading provider of professional information solutions. The group employs more than 30,000 people, including more than 15,000 in North America. Reed Elsevier Group PLC is owned equally by two parent companies, Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. Their shares are traded on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RUK and ENL.
Media contact
Darren Sugrue
Elsevier
+31 20 485 3506
d.sugrue@elsevier.com
[
Share]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 22-Oct-2013
[
]
ShareContact: Darren Sugrue
d.sugrue@elsevier.com
31-204-853-506
Elsevier
Professor Shankar Balasubramanian from the University of Cambridge UK, is awarded the 2013 Tetrahedron Prize for his outstanding contributions to nucleic acid chemistry and biology
Amsterdam, October 22, 2013 Elsevier and the Executive Board of Editors of the Tetrahedron journal series are pleased to announce that the 2013 Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry & BioMedicinal Chemistry has been awarded to Professor Shankar Balasubramanian.
The annual Tetrahedron Prize honors the most creative and influential organic or medicinal chemist. The Executive Board of Editors of the Tetrahedron journal series selected Professor Balasubramanian for his many highly significant and seminal contributions to nucleic acid chemistry and biology.
Professor Stephen Neidle, Chairman of the Editorial Board of Tetrahedron journals said, "Professor Balasubramanian is a world-leading researcher in the study of quadruplex nucleic acids, demonstrating, for example, the existence of these structures in human cells: a landmark study which can pave the way to therapeutic targeting of quadruplexes. Furthermore, he has creatively applied knowledge of nucleic acid chemistry to the invention of next-generation DNA sequencing which is revolutionizing genetics and its application to medicine."
"I am deeply honoured to be the recipient of this important prize and to join such a distinguished collection of chemists who have previously received this award," said Professor Balasubramanian. "I would like to acknowledge the contributions of many talented and visionary co-workers and collaborators with whom it continues to be a great pleasure exploring nature through science. I thank Tetrahedron journals and the election committee for recognising the importance of the field of nucleic acids. I foresee that chemistry will contribute many more discoveries and inventions to further our understanding of DNA and RNA in the next decade and beyond."
Diddel Francissen, Executive Publisher of Tetrahedron journal series at Elsevier, said, "I am delighted with the choice of Professor Balasubramanian as the winner of the 2013 Tetrahedron Prize. I thank both the nominators and the leading scientists in the voting committee, who helped the Editors in making such an exceptional choice from a field of very strong nominations."
The Tetrahedron Prize consists of a gold medal and a monetary award of $10,000 and will be presented to Professor Shankar Balasubramanian at the Fall 2014 ACS National Meeting in San Francisco, USA (10-14 August 2014).
###
About Professor Shankar Balasubramanian
Shankar Balasubramanian was born in Madras (now Chennai) India in 1966 and moved to the UK with his parents in 1967. He grew up in a rural area just outside Runcorn in Cheshire and was schooled at Daresbury (primary), then Appleton Hall High School (secondary). He did his undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge (1985-88) and then carried out a PhD under the supervision of Professor Chris Abell (1988-1991). Balasubramanian then traveled to the USA as a SERC/NATO Research Fellow and worked in the group of Professor Steven J Benkovic at Pensylvannia State University (1991-1993). He started his independent academic career in 1994 in the University of Cambridge and has remained there ever since. He is currently the Herchel Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and holds a joint appointment between the Clinical School and Department of Chemistry. He directs research laboratories in the Department of Chemistry and also the Cambridge Research Institute at the Addenbrookes Biomedical Campus.
More information: http://www.ch.cam.ac.uk/group/shankar/professor-shankar-balasubramanian
About the Tetrahedron Prize
The Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry was established in 1980 by the Executive Board of Editors and the Publisher of Tetrahedron Publications. It is intended to honor the memory of the founding co-Chairmen of these publications, Professor Sir Robert Robinson and Professor Robert Burns Woodward.
The Tetrahedron Prize is awarded on an annual basis for creativity in Organic Chemistry or Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry. The prize consists of a gold medal, a certificate, and a monetary award of US $10,000. It is awarded to an Organic or Medicinal Chemist who has made significant original contributions to the field, in its broadest sense. On some occasions, the Prize may be awarded jointly to two winners in which case two medals are presented. The winner is expected to write an appropriate article for Tetrahedron or Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry as part of a Symposium-in-Print compiled in their honor.
For more information: http://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences/chemistry/organic-chemistry/tetrahedron-prize-for-creativity-in-organic-chemistry-or-bioorganic-medicinal-chemistry
About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, Reaxys, ClinicalKey and Mosby's Suite, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, helping research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.
A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world leading provider of professional information solutions. The group employs more than 30,000 people, including more than 15,000 in North America. Reed Elsevier Group PLC is owned equally by two parent companies, Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. Their shares are traded on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RUK and ENL.
Media contact
Darren Sugrue
Elsevier
+31 20 485 3506
d.sugrue@elsevier.com
[
Share]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/e-eat102213.php
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Generation Listen - What's Next?
Welcome To The Generation Listen Tribe.
Generation Listen was born as Danielle Deabler's passion project. She knew public radio's future was dependent on finding the next generation of fans and supporters. She enlisted the help of several colleagues across the organization that shared her vision – and we spent many hours together talking about how to build and grow the effort.
We've been humbled by the outpouring of support after we launched Generation Listen at SXSWi in March. We've enjoyed interacting with you on Twitter and Facebook, hearing your stories about why public radio is so important to you, learning about your ideas on what you want from us, and how we can better connect with you. We also get your questions - one with more frequency than others: what's next?
Since the launch of Generation Listen, we've convened small gatherings across the country with thought leaders, entrepreneurs, business leaders and artists, refining our plans, gathering ideas and experimenting with different types of events. We're sketching out our plans to answer the question 'what's next?'. We've been brainstorming with our external advisory, listening to your input, talking to our colleagues across public radio, and hiring our first intern (Hi Daisy). Our brains are swelling with ideas.
We'll be announcing several new initiatives that answer the 'what's next?' question in the coming months. Here are a few things you can expect to see:
- More conversations, interactions, and sharing on Twitter and Facebook
- Live Google Hangouts with colleagues like Anya Grundman of NPR Music and Guy Raz of TED Radio Hour
- Improved website and blog features
- Generation Listen events and listening parties
- Local listening parties, hosted by you and your friends
We're excited about all of this, and we'll share more details on these new campaigns as they launch. In the meantime, let's keep the conversation going on Twitter and Facebook.
Lars Schmidt & Team Generation Listen
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Why No One Actually Wants to Live Forever
Courtesy Romka/Flickr
My career as a journalist began not at the Times of London, as I’d hoped, but rather as the editorial assistant (or dogsbody) at Pensions World magazine, a trade journal read by investment managers and HR professionals. My first assignment was to write an article on preretirement training. Training, as in a two-day course offered to people who were approaching retirement. I remember shaking my head in disbelief—people really needed to learn how to do nothing? How to hang out and chill? Retirement was just one long holiday, right? How hard could it be?
Well, actually, pretty hard, it turned out. Depression runs high among retirees, and not just because of reduced income—in fact, the baby boomers who have recently retired are living a life of relative luxury compared with those of us still a few decades away. No, the reason they get depressed is because when you’re retired, it is easy to feel like you have nothing to live for anymore, no purpose, nothing to get up for, no reason to even get dressed.
In a word, they are bored.
Now I have nothing against boredom per se; I think it’s an essential part of life, particularly when you’re a child. (My guiding parenting philosophy is to let my three children get bored a lot, hoping that it will stimulate their creativity—and also saving me the bother of schlepping them around from one activity to another.) But the retired suffer from a kind of crushing boredom akin to the one that faces the unemployed. It’s a hopeless monotony, the kind of tedium that necessitates little routines just to get you through the day: the walk to get the paper (giving you a reason to get up and dressed), doing the crossword (to keep your brain active), maybe visiting a cafe in the afternoon (for some company). As one retiree who spoke at the training course put it: “I thought my hobbies would expand to fill my days. But it turns out golf isn’t so much fun when it’s all there is. I used to long for more time to get my handicap down; now I’ve got all the time in the world and I barely play.”
And it was those words that stuck in my head when I wrote my first novel, The Declaration, a dystopian glimpse into a future where longevity drugs keep people living indefinitely. The real sting in the tale was that no one could have children, either, lest the world become overpopulated. But it was the idea of people just existing, getting through the day, that really made me want to write the book.
The truth is that humankind has been searching for eternal life since the first man or woman made the horrific discovery that they were going to die at some point. No one wants to stop existing, not when we know what a hugely important part we play in the world around us, when we know how insightful our thoughts are, how brilliant our wit. We cannot die—there must be some way of cheating (or, some might think, fixing) the system.
The hunt has been going on for thousands of years, and most of us join it in one way or another, whether through belief in an afterlife/reincarnation, starving ourselves, taking vitamins, or simply downing a glass of red wine every night and secretly hoping the cure for aging will be found while we’re still in our prime. And the fact of the matter is that things are moving in the right direction. We’re already living for decades more than our grandparents, and the things that I imagined in my novel—such as growing a new heart from stem cells—are seemingly just around the corner.
But no one ever asks the question that, to me at least, is fundamental. Do we really want to extend the human lifespan indefinitely? Would it really make us happy?
To which I believe the answer is no, and no.
What we forget when we focus on extending our lifespan as long as possible is that things make us happy because they are rare, finite, and therefore valuable and precious. Diamonds. Newborns. Laughter. Great first dates. Great third dates. Sunshine. (I live in London. Trust me, sunshine is very rare and very finite.) Make these things available to everyone all the time, and they would lose their glow, become mundane.
Imagine you were given an extra week’s vacation. You would probably be delighted. You’d make plans and do things you’d been wanting to do for a while—jobs around the house, day trips, catching up with friends. But what if you were given a year off? Would you make as much of every week? I doubt it. You’d procrastinate, because there would be no urgency, no need to get on with anything quickly. You might enjoy the year, but, comparatively, nowhere near as much as the week.
Not convinced? What if I were to hand you $100, or $1,000 or even $1 million right now? The excitement, the possibilities, the shopping … I suspect you’d be delighted (and I hope you’d be grateful). But what if I were to give you $1 million every day for the rest of your life? Every single day, another $1 million. To start with, you’d probably be over the moon, would buy houses, cars, yachts, islands. But eventually you would tire of the money. It would lose its meaning, perhaps even become a chore. It would certainly never give you as much happiness as that first $1 million. Or even the first $100.
The truth is, we humans like deadlines, boundaries. We get carried away on a night out because we know the sun will come up eventually and it will be over; in the meantime, we want to make the most of every second. We feel a sense of urgency about our careers, our love lives, our children, our friends, because we know that nothing lasts forever, that we have to grab opportunities, make the most of them, live in the moment, never miss a minute. It’s what gives everything meaning, what drives us on.
But if everything lasted forever, though, we could miss a whole year of minutes and it wouldn’t matter. There would be no point starting anything today when it could so easily be put off until tomorrow. Or next decade. Or the decade after that. Perhaps that’s one reason why a recent survey found that most Americans would rather live to 79–100, rather than 120 or beyond.
If we were to live forever, even if we lived in perfect health every day of our lives, it wouldn’t be long, in my view at least, before we were all lying in bed in the morning wondering why we should bother to get up and get dressed.
Of course I’ve got an article somewhere in my loft on preretirement training that might help. But then again, I’d have to spend some time searching for it. Might take me a while …
Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/10/increasing_human_lifespan_could_have_a_serious_side_effect_boredom.html
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Daily Roundup: Surface 2 review, Google's Project Shield, LG's Chrome OS fixation and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on ...Similar Articles: Julie Chen powerball numbers Tom Harmon joe flacco Xbox One Release Date
At Guantanamo, 'Sketching' Defendants, Witnesses And KSM's Nose
When the secretive military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay began, only one courtroom sketch artist was allowed in. Her name is Janet Hamlin.
The Associated Press sent her there in 2006. Since then, Hamlin has created a rare visual record of the human drama unfolding in Guantanamo's courtrooms. Those images are now collected in a book, Sketching Guantanamo.
The sketches are mostly of the men accused of acts of terrorism, including the Sept. 11 detainees. But there are also Sept. 11 families looking on, and courtrooms crowded with defense lawyers, prosecutors and witnesses.
Some of Hamlin's most compelling sketches are richly detailed portraits of the youngest defendent, Omar Khadr, who was 15 when he arrived at Guantanamo. Born in Canada, Khadr spent much of his childhood in Pakistan — his father was involved with Osama bin Laden. In 2002, Khadr was captured in Afghanistan, accused of killing an American army medic in a firefight.
Hamlin tells NPR's Renee Montagne that when she first saw Khadr, "he had that teenaged look. He had civilian clothes on, and had teen tennis shoes, and I remember he had this plaid shirt. The next year, he was in a khaki uniform, and his hair had grown out, and he seemed frustrated and angry. Then, the following year, he seemed to be engaged, and congenial, and involved."
Interview Highlights
On the emotional moments of Khadr's trial
That was very dramatic. He was sitting down, and all of a sudden he stood up ... he was basically apologizing. It was a real surprise, and it was a very moving moment in that courtroom ... [the medic's widow] is crying and she's saying, "no no no no," shaking her head ... that there was nothing, she was not going to accept it, she wasn't going to believe it. She was emphatic. I don't think there were too many dry eyes in that court, on all sides.
On sketching the trial of alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Everybody was quite surprised the first time we saw him, because his beard had gone very grey, it was very Merlinesque. He had lost weight, substantial weight, and he was in a white uniform, you know, prison garb. And I had to make a point of getting his likeness right away. And from a distance that was a bit difficult, and that led to a sort of awkward moment in my courtroom drawing career, because Khalid Sheikh Mohammed actually did not want it to go out, saying that the nose was all wrong. He said, "tell her to go get my FBI photo off the internet, use that as a reference, and touch it up before it can be moved" ... It was an opportunity to do a better job. It was not the best likeness. But that became almost, it felt almost as big of a story, or close to it, as the fact that the world was seeing him, was the fact that he could censor or make such a change.
On KSM's dyed beard
The first time we saw him with the red beard, it was rusty brown, it was a little odd, but it was different. And then it started getting more garish, and more like a Hawaiian Punch tone ... people were asking, okay, what's going on here? Well, finally the fruit juice and berries or something was the explanation for that kind of vivid color he was getting.
On sketching the prison outside the courtrooms
There's a few things that surprised me. There was the fact that they have these soccer fields, or these kind of recreational areas. They have Game Boys, TVs, DVDs, a library in different languages. They insisted on doing their own laundry, a lot of them, so you see laundry hanging out ... there's classrooms, there's art lessons, language lessons.
Images from Sketching Guantanamo: Court Sketches of the Military Tribunals, 2006–2013. Copyright 2013 Fantagraphics Books. All drawings copyright 2013 Janet Hamlin.
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